October in History

Historical Events on October

1931 Spain adopts women's suffrage.

1947 The first televised White House address is given by U.S. President Harry S. Truman.

2001 The Global War on Terrorism begins as a result of the September 11 attacks. The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan initiates with an air assault and covert operations on the ground.

1860 Telegraph line between Los Angeles and San Francisco opens.

1940 World War II: Battle of Britain: During a night-time air raid by the German Luftwaffe, St. Paul's Cathedral in the City of London, England is hit by a bomb.

1980 Pope John Paul II shakes hands with the Dalai Lama during a private audience in Vatican City.

1908 The Chicago Cubs defeat the Detroit Tigers, 2-0, clinching the World Series; this would be their last until clinching the 2016 World Series.

1912 While campaigning in Milwaukee, the former President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, is shot and mildly wounded by John Schrank, a mentally-disturbed saloon keeper. With the fresh wound in his chest, and the bullet still within it, Mr. Roosevelt still carries out his scheduled public speech.

1956 Donald Byrne and Bobby Fischer play a famous chess game called The Game of the Century. Fischer beat Byrne and wins a Brilliancy prize.

1873 Yale, Princeton, Columbia, and Rutgers universities draft the first code of American football rules.

1978 Papal inauguration of Pope John Paul II.

2012 After 38 years, the world's first teletext service (BBC's Ceefax) ceases broadcast due to Northern Ireland completing the digital switchover.

1905 Sweden accepts the independence of Norway.

1912 First Balkan War: The Ottoman occupied city of Thessaloniki, is liberated and unified with Greece on the feast day of its patron saint Demetrius. On the same day, Serbian troops captured Skopje.

1923 Turkey becomes a republic following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.

1960 In Louisville, Kentucky, Cassius Clay (who later takes the name Muhammad Ali) wins his first professional fight.

1953 Cold War: U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally approves the top secret document National Security Council Paper No. 162/2, which states that the United States' arsenal of nuclear weapons must be maintained and expanded to counter the communist threat.

2014 Sweden is the first European Union member state to officially recognize the State of Palestine.

Famous Birthdays on October

1924 Jimmy Carter

1869 Mahatma Gandhi

1981 Zlatan Ibrahimović

1952 Vladimir Putin

1925 Margaret Thatcher

1906 Hannah Arendt

1989 PewDiePie

1947 Hillary Clinton

Famous Deaths on October

2011 Steve Jobs

1806 Benjamin Banneker

1958 Pope Pius XII

1985 Orson Welles

1944 Erwin Rommel

2011 Muammar Gaddafi

2012 George McGovern

1984 Indira Gandhi

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